Dem
47
GOP
53
There was a trio of special elections in Florida yesterday, plus a delayed result from North Carolina, all involving seats in the respective state legislatures. The leitmotif of the results: It's not a great time to be a member of the party in power in Washington.
The delayed result involves North Carolina Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger (R), who is described in virtually every article about the race as "The most powerful Republican in North Carolina." Not quite powerful enough, it would seem, as he has conceded to challenger Sam Page (R), who is currently Rockingham County Sheriff. It's a very red district, so Page will be elected to the seat in November.
The main issues in the election appear to have been mostly local, with Berger's efforts to bring a casino to his district a particular focal point. However, the GOP establishment went all-in on trying to save Berger's bacon, only to see him come up short (by just a handful of votes). That included an endorsement from Donald Trump, backed by several Trump-recorded robocalls. If Trump's power in North Carolina is waning, that could be important to this year's U.S. Senate election, where the Democrats have a strong candidate in former governor Roy Cooper, and the Republicans have a candidate who is closely identified with Trump in former RNC Chair Michael Whatley.
Moving on to elections that were held yesterday (the North Carolina election was 2 weeks ago), Trump suffered another black eye, this one in his own home district, Florida HD-87. Trump won that district by 9 points back in 2024, but yesterday, Democrat Emily Gregory flipped it, taking 51.1% of the vote to 48.9% for Republican Jon Maples. That is a swing of 11 points, and it's also the first time in this century a Democrat has won the district.
Incidentally, Trump did cast a vote in this one, presumably for the losing candidate. Since he's a busy fellow, he registered his preference via mail-in ballot. We are certain that we read about someone who said that mail-in voting is dishonest and encourages fraud and should not be allowed. We can't remember who that was, however; we'll have to look into it.
In the second special election, this one in Florida SD-14, there was also another flip, and it was even less expected. The general consensus was that Gregory had a good chance to flip HD-87, but that state Rep. Josie Tomkow (R) was likely to be successful in securing a promotion in SD-14, due to higher name recognition and a bigger war chest. As of Monday, the prediction market Kalshi had her at 94% to win. However, Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and blue-collar union man, was victorious, taking 50.25% of the vote to 49.75% for Tomkow. Trump won the district by 7.5% in 2025, so that's a swing of 8 points in the direction of the Democrats.
The Republicans did get the result they wanted in the third special election, this one for HD-51, the seat Tomkow left behind to run for the state Senate. Republican Hilary Holley knocked off Democrat Edwin Pérez with room to spare, 54% to 46%. Trump won that one by 14% in 2024, so it's the smallest swing of the night, though still 6 points in favor of the Democrats.
It's yet another set of special election results that suggest momentum favors the Democrats right now. There isn't much excitement next week (runoffs in Arkansas is about it), but things will pick back up on April 7, when Georgians vote for a replacement for Marge Greene, while Wisconsinites pick a new state Supreme Court justice. (Z)